Custom contrived: Visiting St Valentine’s Shrine Glasgow

Many of us may have heard of the term Glasgow kiss; but that does not have anything to do with love…whereas just on the outskirts of the city in the Gorbals is something truly connected with love – the remains of St Valentine himself!

But how did the saint end up here? 

Valentine was a 3rd century priest or bishop in Rome, who Roman emperor Claudius II jailed undertaking Christian marriages which the emperor had ruled against. According to tradition he finally befriended Claudius and his daughter – with letters signed off – your valentine, but when he tried converting them to Christianity he was beaten with clubs, stoned and beheaded and was buried in the Via Flamina cemetery in Rome. So how did he end up in Glasgow?

It is said that in 1868 a wealthy French family donated some relics of Saint Valentine to the Franciscan Catholic church. These French monks then brought the relics to Glasgow and donated them to the Church of St Francis a Gothic style church designed by Peter Paul Pugin and then when they moved to a new church in the Gorbals they brought the relic with them to Blessed John Duns Scotus Church in Ballater Street. This was in 1993 and then an examination 6 years later of a cardboard box sitting on a wardrove revealed the reliquary casket. Soon publicity of the possession of the relics was better known encased in a reliquary box. The outside of this box having carved “Corpus Valentini Martyris,” or “the Body of Saint Valentine” in gold lettering.

Although Churches in Terni, near Rome, and Dublin also claim the saint’s remains it is not uncommon to have relics split up and it is said that his forearm bone is what is contained in the Glasgow church.

Be my Valentine

“Following extensive publicity, Glasgow proclaimed itself City of Love and in February 2002 launched to the City of Love Festival, an event which has been repeated in subsequent years.”

Glasgow has really capitalised on the relic’s presence. The church itself have encouraged a low key custom and as such a new pilgrimage has begun. Every year on the Feast of St Valentine, the casket holding the relic is bedecked with flowers and the friars say prayers for lovers who petition to do so. A statue of the saint is covered in red roses as is a sheet beside it

The Scotsman reports:

““Each year on Valentine’s Day, visitors—mainly couples—will visit the shrine,” Smulski says. “Some come to renew their wedding vows and, in one known instance, to make a proposal of marriage to his intended.”

Another account states on the proposals:

“They have done so, yes,” says Rev Edmund Highton of the impromptu marriage proposals at the church, “I’ve seen it happen while I’ve been here. They just come in, and you see one of them get down on the knee, and so on.”

 

Over the day I attended in the early 00s there was a steady stream of curious onlookers some just curious, others more devout making blessings as they gently touched the casket. Its an organic custom, not much it seems encouraged by the church:

“Father Edmund’s shrug is quite audible when I ask him about St Valentine. “It’s not an important one for me. That’s just a matter of history. We’ve got these relics, people come in, and they have a devotion. They see it as a focus for themselves, that’s all. St Valentine was a martyr saint who gave witness to his faith, that’s all I’m interested in. That’s good.”

Despite this some couples did come to feel romantic in the casket’s presence and whilst it is not well advertised – there is no signpost unlike its nearest St Valentine shrine competitor in Dublin it has attracted people on the feasts day. I did see some couples kissed in its presence but I did not see any proposals sadly…mind you the fame of the casket has probably grown since then and its fame has developed into a more concrete custom and as such I am overdue a visit.

 

 

 

Custom survived: Some Kentish Curfew bells

‘Solemnly, mournfully,

Dealing its dole,

The curfew Bell,

Is beginning to toll,

Cover the embers,

And put out the light,

Toil comes with the morning,

And rest with the night.’

The ringing the curfew bell was once a commonly heard sound across the English countryside, calling workers to down tools or all villagers and citizens to damp down fires. Although the first law regarding curfews was passed in Oxford by Alfred the Great in A.D. 972, ( requiring all fires to be covered at night when the bell was rung ), it was only extended to the whole of England, after the Norman conquest. It was then that it gained the name curfew, deriving from the name for a metal cover which ensured that the embers did not ignite. This was called a ‘Couvre feu’. This, thus can be translated as to cover ( couvre ) and fire ( feu ). 

Although, the order to ring curfew bells was abolished in 1100, many churches still continued the custom, at least to the Second World War. Indeed there are a number of recorded examples of curfew bells or curfew ringing in Kent, which have never been collated together and are worth discussing, particularly because close examination reveals some interesting reasons for their foundation or rather continuation.  

One of the most interesting reasons is recorded at St. Margaret at Cliffe, Dover. Where the ringing was endowed by a shepherd. An account relates this endowment or possibly re-endowment ( it is not exactly clear which ), in the minutes of the vestry book of September 1696. It states:

“Whereas there has been, and is at this time, a parcel of land in this parish, called by the name of curfew land ( corfeu ), consisting of five rods more or less, which for some time hath been given by a shepherd, who one night fell over the cliff, yet lived so long as to make the said bequest for the ringing of the curfew bell every night for the winter half year…, and now finding the great neglect for some years past in the due ringing of the same, and to prevent for the future any danger which may ensue to travellers and other being so near the cliff for the want and due of constant ringing, if possible the like sad Providence may not befall any other, we, the minister, churchwardens and others, the parishioners whose names are underwritten, in reference to the donors good intent, herein do hereby order and decree that the said curfew bell be hereafter rung every night in the week, all the aforesaid winter half year, for the full time of quarter of an hour at least without any exception of a Sunday or Holy Day Nights; and he that rings is to have and receive the benefit and profit of the said curfew land, provided also that he whosoever he is or shall be clerk of the parish shall have the refusal of it before any other…And in case it shall not be constantly rung it shall be lawful for the said minister and churchwardens to receive the rent from him who occupies the said land, and to deduct from it every night it shall not be rung twopence ( and any commission ), which shall be given to the poor that come constantly to the church.

In testimony whereof we have hereunto set our hands Wm. Barney, S. Marg. Vicar, John Chittey, Churchwarden’

The bells at St Margaret at Cliffe were recast into a small set of eight bells in 1977 and now the curfew has subsequently been programmed into the electronic bell system, being chimed by electronic solenoids attached to an electronic keyboard. 

A similar piece of folklore is believed to be the origin of Cowden’s curfew. The historian, J. C. L. Stahlschmidtt ( 1887 ) in his ‘The Church Bells of Kent; their inscriptions, Founders, Uses and Traditions’, notes that:

‘..that the donor had lost his way in the Forest and was guided home by the Cowden bells.’

Beneath the bells at Cowden is a board which reads that a Richard Still bequest 20 shillings a year from Waystrode Farm for the ringing of the ‘Great Bell’ at five in the morning and eight at night from Michaelmas to Lady Day for ever.’

It is possible that this was a survival of the morning and evening ‘Ave’ bells. Records suggest that Richard Still gave the rent as remuneration for a duty which the clerk or sexton has been performing for centuries. Certainly he did not originate the payment; for a William Jackson was paid £1 ‘for Ringing ye eight a clock bell’ in 1671.

The five o’clock bell ceased in 1875, as ‘the amount not being considered sufficient pay for the double work’. Presumably, the evening bell, was not kept up after the First and Second World Wars, when by law, such activities were curtailed.

Sandwich’s curfew bell does not appear to have any traditions, but it still continues to be tolled. Sandwich’s Curfew bell appears to be alluded to in historian Boys’ ‘History of Sandwich’:

“The sexton is appointed by the parishioners and he has a salary from the parish of 40/- for the tolling the tenor, whenever the service requires, the likewise rings the tenor bell very night at eight  o’ clock, unless there to be a burial at the church and again in the morning at four o’ clock from a fortnight after Michaelmas to a fortnight before old lady day, except on Sundays and in the twelve days of Christmas, for which he has from the corporation annually £3 and an allowance of 6s 8d for candles and oil.”

The sexton had around an annual allowance of four shillings from the Corporation for ringing at the church ‘Bromelyese bell at one and the curfu at eight o’ clock’. The bell is still rung every evening at eight by the Sandwich Curfew Ringers. Apparently, they each take it in turn to ring the bell, with one date per month!

Another surviving curfew bell ringing is that rung at Canterbury Cathedral every night between five to nine and nine o’clock in the evening when the gates of the precincts are closed. The bell, called Bell Harry, was named after Prior Henry of Eastry, and was cast in 1635 by a Kentish Bellfounder, Joseph Hatch of Ulcombe. This is now electronically chimed after being rehung in 1981 as part of the overhaul of all the cathedral bells. 

 

Curfew bells and their establishment are an interesting but neglected topic for folklorists. Hopefully, this article will produce more interest in the subject and bring forth more examples.

Custom demised: Bradford’s St Blaise’s Day processions

Hone in his Book of Days discussed the importance of St Blaise’s Day to the Yorkshire city of Bradford he states:

“The large flourishing communities engaged in this business in Bradford, and other English towns, are accustomed to hold a septennial jubilee on the 3rd of February, in honour of Jason of the Golden Fleece and St. Blaize; and not many years ago the fête was conducted with considerable state and ceremony.”.

The author continues to report the procession as in 1825:

“Herald bearing a flag, Woolstaplers on horseback, each horse caparisoned with a fleece. Worsted Spinners and manufacturers_ on horseback, in white stuff waistcoats, with each a sliver over the shoulder, and a white stuff sash; the horses’ necks covered with nets made of thick yarn. Merchants_ on horseback, with coloured sashes.

Three guards. Masters’ Colours. Three guards. Apprentices and Masters’ Sons_, on horseback, with ornamented caps, scarlet stuff coats, white stuff waistcoats, and blue pantaloons.

Bradford and Keighley Bands. Mace-bearer, on foot. Six guards. King. Queen. Six guards. Guards. Jason. Princess Medea. Guards. Bishop’s Chaplain. Bishop Blase. Shepherd and Shepherdess. Shepherd Swains. Woolsorters, on horseback, with ornamented caps, and various coloured slivers. Comb Makers. Charcoal Burners. Combers’ Colours. Band. Woolcombers_ with wool wigs, &c.  Band. Dyers, with red cockades, blue aprons, and crossed slivers of red and blue.”

Before the procession started it was addressed by Richard Fawcett, Esq., in the following lines:

“Hail to the day, whose kind auspicious rays Deign’d first to smile on famous Bishop Blase! To the great author of our Combing trade, This day’s devoted, and due honour’s paid, To him whose fame thro’ Britain’s isle resounds, To him whose goodness to the poor abounds. Long shall his name in British annals shine. And grateful ages offer at his shrine! By this our trade are thousands daily fed, By it supplied with means to earn their bread. In various forms our trade its work impart, In different methods, and by different arts: 

Preserves from starving indigents distress’d, As Combers, Spinners, Weavers, and the rest. We boast no gems, or costly garments vain,  Borrow’d from India or the coast of Spain; Our native soil with wool our trade supplies, While foreign countries envy us the prize. No foreign broil our common good annoys, Our country’s product all our art employs; Our fleecy flocks abound in every vale, Our bleating lambs proclaim the joyful tale. So let not Spain with us attempt to vie,  Nor India’s wealth pretend to soar so high; Nor Jason pride him in his Colchian spoil, By hardships gain’d, and enterprising toil; Since Britons all with ease attain the prize, And every hill resounds with golden crie, To celebrate our founder’s great renown. Our shepherd and our shepherdess we crown, For England’s commerce and for George’s sway Each loyal subject give a loud Huzza.   Huzza!”

There was apparently a town-wide celebrations in 1804, 1811, 1818 and 1825 as recorded above and by a Bradford Dr John Simpson who wrote about:

“by different individuals connected with the trade of the place’ and that Bradford ‘may expect a great influx of strangers, indeed great numbers have arrived today’. His diary entry for the 3^rd February, Saint Blaise’s Day, recorded how there had been ‘wind. . . snow and rain’ overnight but it had cleared by morning – ‘the morning was beautiful . . . it seemed as of the weather had taken up purposely for the celebration of the Blaise’.

This apparently was the first festival although there were apparently a smaller scale event in 1857 and 1930 and then no more! However, there is a campaign for a revival of sorts. Local poet and writer Glyn Watkins has campaigned to revive the festival through a series of walks, talks and events in Bradford combined with one year with a Bring Back Blaise Wool Festival at Bradford Industrial Museum. But so far it has not encouraged a real civic ceremony being revived.